


this tired face of mine

by racingincircles



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Flashpoint (Comics), Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, F/M, I'm trash for Thomas/Martha as BatJokes, Memories, Multiverse, but I also love the idea of them as Bats in different universes, but it's a oneshot for now, might add more chapters we'll see, response fic, this idea grabbed me and wouldn't let me go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26821033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/racingincircles/pseuds/racingincircles
Summary: He doesn’t want to turn and look at her, because seeing her again makes his heart ache every time, even though he barely recognizes her in this universe.He does anyway.
Relationships: Martha Wayne/Thomas Wayne
Comments: 9
Kudos: 50





	this tired face of mine

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [In the dark blue sky you keep](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20748440) by [loosingletters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loosingletters/pseuds/loosingletters). 



> I first read the original fic in January, started writing this response in June and pulled the rest of it together today out of nowhere. Being cooped up inside most of the time is getting to me.
> 
> As in the first fic (which obviously you should read first), there's no explanation for how Thomas and Martha went from their separate universes to a third where their son is alive and has built the Batfamily. I just wanted to write an opportunity for them to sort of connect, built on the foundation the original fic writer created, and I hope it worked.
> 
> Title from "An Eye for an Eye" by Editors.

He thinks he’s alone.

The Manor has never been this crowded in his living memory, and probably not in its entire history either. It’s truly lovely to see the place so full of life, although maybe he’d be more capable of appreciating it if he hadn’t thrown himself into solitude the way he’d thrown himself into medicine before and vigilantism after everything fell apart.

(He’d always been something of a workaholic, so becoming an alcoholic was just the logical next step after all the trauma, he liked to tell himself.)

So when the contrast between this Manor and the one he’s lived in for two decades becomes particularly jarring, which it does almost every night after sundown, Thomas Wayne retreats to the northeast balcony, on the opposite end of the house from the master bedroom he and his wife once shared, now occupied by his son and daughter-in-law (calling Selina that is equally strange, wonderful and guilt-inducing).

Alfred’s room isn’t close either, and he’s even more likely than Bruce to confiscate the flask in Thomas’ hand. He’d had more than one stashed in his Batsuit when he’d inexplicably and unexpectedly landed in this world.

He’s making the liquor last, since he doesn’t know if, when or how he’ll be able to raid the Manor’s liquor cupboard with no chance of being caught. The sudden reduced intake means his intoxication threshold has backslid, which he sees as a win-win of sorts. He raises the flask to his lips.

“Think you can spare some of that?”

He freezes. Of course he didn’t hear her arrive; she’s a Bat, after all.

He doesn’t want to turn and look at her, because seeing her again makes his heart ache every time, even though he barely recognizes her in this universe. He does anyway, partly out of whatever passes for politeness in his book since he forfeited his right to be a gentleman years ago, and partly because the darkness will hopefully dull the heartache a bit, despite the nearly-full moon.

It doesn’t, and Thomas hates that he isn’t surprised by this. The sight of his wife (or ex-wife, or something, or ex-something — Bruce’s mother, regardless) partially shrouded by shadows, hair down, face free of makeup or scars, not only cracks his heart open but also dares to inject a strain of involuntary longing into it.

“It’s fine if you can’t,” Martha says, clipped and emotionless with an underlying message of _you really should, though,_ reminiscent of how she approached the negotiating table way back when she helmed Wayne Enterprises. Not at all reminiscent of how she used to talk to him, but they’re near-total strangers to each other. Sharing liquor might help with that, or it might not. Thomas doesn’t know which is true, and he doubts Martha does.

Right. She asked to share his booze. She only spoke again because he’d been too inadvertently lost in his thoughts to respond.

Never a patient person, Martha starts to turn to leave, and Thomas’ arm seems to move of its own accord, holding out the flask in her direction. He says nothing, primarily because nothing feels sufficient and secondarily because his vocal chords seem to have vanished from his throat.

He doesn’t know what brought her out here and he’s not sure if he wants to know, because knowing that would be knowing her, and therefore giving this version of her free reign to clash further with both the woman he married and the villain he’s spent twenty years fighting. He knows all three are the same woman to an extent, but the cognitive dissonance between his Martha and his Joker is already most of why he drinks. He’s not particularly keen on adding more than he’s already seen of this alternate Martha — this widow, this Bat, this friend of Ra’s al Ghul — to the maelstrom.

But for reasons he refuses to analyze, he’s even less keen on her leaving so soon after she’s stumbled upon him, so he obliges her request, perhaps despite his better judgment. Not that he’s had better judgment in the past several years.

Martha pauses and skeptically side-eyes Thomas and the flask. He allows himself to wish he knew what thoughts are swirling through her head during the split second they’re both motionless.

She steps just close enough to reach the flask. He notices the full extension of her arm indicating this is as near to him as she’s willing to get. Her hand closes around the object slowly and deliberately, and Thomas realizes she’s avoiding brushing his fingers with hers. He no longer wants to know her thoughts, since in this moment she’s clearly foregone subtlety, a move he would normally have associated with her being relaxed. The tension in her hand radiates into his through the conduit of the flask before he relinquishes it. Cognitive dissonance, indeed. At least he knew he was inviting it when he made his silent offer.

She takes a sizable swig of liquor, and he barely suppresses a wince, both at the use of his limited supply and the fact that the woman he married could have gotten tipsy from that amount alone, but Martha doesn’t indicate she feels the burn at all.

“You’re still a Macallan man.” She smirks as she hands the flask back to him. “Aberlour goes down easier.”

He’s almost proud of her, as if he actually knows this version of her, for knowing single-malt Scotch brands by taste. She certainly didn't back in the day. She doesn't seem hooked, but it comes close to warming his heart that they apparently share a coping mechanism, at least to an extent.

“I know,” he says, “but I’m consistent.”

Her smirk holds steady as she leans against the balcony, interpreting his response as an invitation to get comfortable, or at least — correctly — not a desire for her to leave. “Maybe the word you’re looking for is stubborn.”

His lips twitch. She always has a response for him, every time, in every universe.

“Maybe,” he counters, and it doesn’t feel like a concession, just a statement.

The ease with which they’re slipping into some mild form of banter takes Thomas aback. They’ve been awkward and nearly silent around each other since they arrived, even on the rare occasions they’ve been alone together. But those occasions have never been far from the rest of the Manor’s occupants, and they haven’t been approaching midnight in a secluded part of the Manor they would bet that not all the kids visit often or even know about.

It’s dark enough and she’s far enough away from him that he can’t see the lines on her face that indicate she’s almost as old as he is. She would look like Martha Kane again if the moonlight, that infernal natural phenomenon that insists on torturing Thomas tonight, didn’t betray her age by glinting off the burgeoning streaks of gray in her dark hair, turning them silver but making her look beautiful nonetheless. He knows her cowl must cover those streaks, as well as her flawlessly arched eyebrows and contoured cheekbones, because she would be sure to mask any features that might identify her world's Bat as one of the most beloved figures of Gotham’s tabloid press twenty years ago.

She stares into space, her mind still a mystery to him, and he tries to follow her gaze but ends up continuing to stare at her instead, finding odd comfort in it.

He takes another pull from the flask and holds it out to her again, unsolicited, a peace offering in a war she hasn’t fought but knows he has.

She accepts it, allowing their fingers to touch this time. There’s no spark of electricity or any romance-novel cliche like that, which Thomas appreciates, but there’s an intimacy to it that he knows she won’t acknowledge, and he’s grateful for this as well. He’s more grateful that she’s willing to be around him at all.

He rarely sees any of the man he used to be in the shell, the stone-faced and stone-hearted vigilante he is now, but he has an inkling that she might see something like that, even at a distance, even after so long without him. The idea both scares and soothes him. It should make sense to him, though, since he recognizes shades and elements of the woman beside him even though she’s turned to stone herself, albeit in her own way.

Thomas thinks, as they trade a few more words and pass the Macallan back and forth a few more times, that he can feel a few hairline fractures materializing in the stone. He hopes he’s not imagining the same happening to Martha. It’s been years since he was last capable of wishful thinking, but if anyone could revive that corpse, it would be her.

He decides, after a few more sips from both of them, that it doesn’t matter. This is his most pleasant night in years, and it’s most likely hers too.

Things are still awkward, certainly, but something about the sky above them, or the house below and behind them, or the single-malt, or the way they’re standing just far enough away from each other but not too far, seems to strip away their walls, their personas, so they don’t have to be parents or grandparents or Bats or even long-lost spouses.

They're just Thomas and Martha, whoever those people are, and if this is the alternative to being alone tonight, they’ll both take it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thomas' thoughts about Selina are a reference to her basically being his Robin in Vol. 3 of Batman #84. That's the only aspect of the Tom King version of Flashpoint Thomas I'm willing to recognize. I figured she and Bruce must be together in this story since little Helena Wayne made an appearance in the first fic.
> 
> I definitely subscribe to the fan theory that Martha ran Wayne Enterprises because no way could Thomas have done that in addition to his successful medical career.
> 
> The northeast balcony of the Manor is just something I completely made up.
> 
> I might write a follow-up to this, maybe, and bring in some other characters, but no guarantees.
> 
> Comments are always welcome.


End file.
